Tomato peels are difficult to remove, being very thin and fragile, and the underlying pulp being soft. Domestically it is known to peel tomatoes by hand with a knife, or by plunging them briefly into boiling water to loosen the skin. On the commercial scale, a method with greater throughput is needed. For such large-scale purposes it is known to use steam, ohmic heating, or lye. Lye, or sodium hydroxide, is a corrosive caustic with an alkaline pH. The lye treatment is known to be followed by an addition of hydrochloric or sulfuric acid as a neutralizing agent.
It would be beneficial to provide a system and method for peeling fruits and vegetables, and tomatoes in particular, that has substantially no environmentally harmful byproducts.